Ohio Pride

It's pride weekend. That refers to something my illusive African readers might find shocking, so I'm scaling this up to encompass my general sense of Ohio pride.

I'm from Ohio. I've probably mentioned that a few times on this blog. In my experience, Ohio usually only surfaces as our coastal brethren complain about "flyover states," whenever an election comes around, or as the butt of jokes. I'll admit one thing though, they're often good jokes. (Thank you, Drew Carey, and the guy who made this video and then this video.)*

In response, we humble Ohioans have developed a fierce pride (re: defensiveness) that sometimes manifests itself in the unifying hatred of our neighbor to the North.

*Woman of Questionable Character.
Come on, internet, this is a family-friendly blog.
Still, you see what I mean?

When we're not hating on Michigan for their audacity of having a football rivalry with... someone else (those jerks!), we're representing our more endearing pride whenever we go... anywhere.

But when I say "anywhere,"  I really mean anywhere.

Whoa.

But still, I'm a Columbus kid, and so I can't really avoid it. It's the same reason I have no shame about my life-long devotion to Leonardo DiCaprio in his Titanic days of glory or the fact that I still own both Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync albums. When you're a 12-year-old girl in 1997, there are some things that are simply outside your sphere of influence.

So I'm proud.  And I thought I'd share a few of the reasons why with all of you:

1. Ohio matters - when you're wondering about whether or not to cast a ballot, you're probably justified. There's no real reason to do it because, unless you're from a swing state like me, it probably won't matter.
2. Ohio is the mother of the Presidents. Eight American presidents call the Buckeye State home. So, for history nerds, our state is a veritable playground of presidential libraries and historical sites.
3. Speaking of famous Ohioans, we are also the home of (yes, North Carolina) flight. The Wright Brothers, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and Eddie Rickenbacker all hail from Ohio... as do their inventions (Get out of here, NC!)
4. Let's keep going shall we: How about Thomas Edison, Annie Oakley, Bob Hope, Pete Rose, Steven Spielberg, Dave Chappelle?  Impressed yet?  (I tried to hit a variety of interests there.)
5. But our people aren't our only talent. Goodness, no. We've also got a ton of fun things to do:

• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Cedar Point
• Rails to Trails all over the place (my fave!)
• Lake Erie
• Outdoor Dramas
• Cleveland in general (30 Rock, anyone?)

There are lots of other reasons to like Ohio - the Buckeye songs, the retail (so many things are from here!), the test market food, the hot-but-not-too-hot summers, but this post is getting a bit long and, as you might guess, the thing I love the most about Ohio is that it's home.**

*Go watch now. I'll wait.
**Too sappy? I can see that.

Hey! Hey!  Why do they say West Virginia is almost heaven?  Because it's next door to Ohio!

Dar es Sweaty.

I'm in Dar. Busy, sweaty, traffic-jammed Dar. This is not the capital of Tanzania, but you probably think it is. So do all the government officials who live here even though their office is a bone-rattling, multi-hour rough road drive away... in Dodoma... the actual capital. So, you're in good company.

I'm passing through on my way to America for a few weeks of visiting the land of milk and honey (and Chipotle).  But since I'm here for the next 4-ish hours, I thought you might enjoy a few fun facts about the de-facto capital of my current home.

• The first thing you should know: Dar is the hottest place on earth. I have no evidence for this other than the perma-shvitz I'm working whenever I'm here.

• The city was founded in the 1860s by the Sultan of Zanzibar as a summer residence. Zanzibar is now one of the world's premier paradise island destinations, so I really don't know what this guy was after.

• The Sultan of Zanzibar was also the Sultan of Oman.  That's not really a Dar fact but I still think it's weird. He moved to Zanzibar from Oman because of how much cash he made from the slave trade. Oh, also, he had 36 kids.  Whoa.

• Dar is really Dar es Salaam which is commonly translated as "Haven of Peace" or "Abode of Peace." Given that the city was christened by a man who was making his fortune from slavery, I find this name weird. That said, Dar is known to be much safer than its East African counterpart, Nairobi.

• Swahili, the lingua franca of East Africa, originated in and around Dar (or maybe Zanzibar... it was a really long time ago so there isn't really a common consensus on this point). Swahili is a member of the bantu language group, which is a sub-branch of the Niger-Congo languages (think: interior Africa). But, because of the heavy Arabic influence (12 centuries), a good deal of its vocabulary is derived from there.

• Rent in the nice areas of Dar is absurdly high - easily 2,500 USD (or much, much more) per month for a small flat. While that's frustrating enough, most Tanzanian landlords expect a full year's payment up front. You can see why we only visit Dar and don't stay.

There you go. If you're planning a visit, there's plenty to see, do, eat, etc., but you can get a guidebook for all of that.

Happy trails.

Happy New Year!

You may not have realized it, but it's 2014, y'all.

My circadian rhythm is all messed up. Well, not my circadian rhythm - that's my body's 24-hour cycle. To be fair, that does get messed up pretty regularly though - just because, whenever possible, David and I flee for foreign shores.

All in the last 8 months or so... if you want jobs like ours, get in touch! We're hiring!

Side bar: This reminds me of one of my all-time favorite songs: Pamela Brown. I really like the Leo Kottke version, which has a folksy feel, but the original, twangier Tom T. Hall version ain't too shabby either. You should you-tube it, mainly for verse 2:

I've seen the lights of cities and I've been inside their doors / 

Sailed to foreign countries and walked upon their shores /

I guess the guy she married was the best part of my luck / 

She dug him cause he drove a pickup truck.

You'll have to go listen to the song to get the rest of that little delight. Anyway.

So, it's not my circadian rhythm this time. It's like my "circ-annum" rhythm or something. All across America, high school seniors are lining up to walk across stages into what, for many of them, will be the best summer ever. Days are getting longer, grills are being wheeled out of storage, gardens are being planted, and weekend schedules are filling up with festival dates, outdoor concerts, cookouts, and bike rides.

In painful contrast, I'm shivering. Literally shivering. Leaves are covering the ground and I've spent the last two weekends in sweaters and boots working on a Christmas knitting project. Last night, I started a puzzle while my dinner - soup - simmered on the stove and I worked on my second cup of tea.

We're less than 8 degrees off the equator, but in the most confusing direction - South. I never realized the weather had such a big effect on me - but I am fully in winter-mode. Of course, if any of my former ilk (Ohioans) visited, they'd laugh. Despite the smattering of leaves on the ground, the bougainvillea is still in full bloom and we're tropical enough that there are limes fruiting on the trees in the backyard of our office as I type this.

But, still.  I'm all out of sorts.

It doesn't help my screwy sense of time that, for our purposes, it is 2014. Monday was basically our New Year's Celebration. We - and by "we", I mean the 1,147 farmers we served during the 2013 harvest - met our payment deadline.* So, it's on to 2014! We're diving head first into enrollment and putting our focus on expanding our services to (likely) more than double the 2013 headcount.

Anyway. My New Year's Resolution: buy more sweaters.  Seriously guys, I'm really chilly.

*And this is why my job is amazing - we're talking about some of the poorest people in the world and what did they do?  This year, 1,147 of them planted what, for many, will be the best harvest of their lives and they all paid for it - in full - by the deadline.  That's how poor people grow their way out of poverty and into a better life.  Cool, right?  If you agree, let me know -- we're hiring!

It's just that I've been busy.

My mom's been bugging me to write more on my blog.  She's even lobbied for a few particular stories.

I still can't tell you about the time that I applied for my Kenyan driver's license.  I'm saving that little gem for my tell-all memoir: "Eggs in the Engine Block."

I also can't claim to have personally lived the story that's inspired my memoir's winning title, but since I think it's a pretty good representation of the optimism, resourcefulness, and unintentional hilarity of the residents of East Africa, I'll probably pretend that it is my story.  I'm looking forward to being exposed as a fraud on Oprah.  But again, you'll have to wait for the memoir.

Given that those two are staying in my back pocket for now, my mom thought I should tell the story behind this:

Schistosomiasis anyone?

But, honestly, what's to tell?  I paid for a ticket and a kayak outfitter hooked me up with some safety gear before we set off.  That's not to say that careening down the Nile isn't a total baller way to spend a Friday, but I'm not sure there's all that much to share, really.

It just turns out that launching a country operation takes up a lot of time.  I've also been busily trying to check things off the old 30 Before 30 list, which makes for some nice life accomplishments, but not so many write-up-able moments.  Since my last update, I've finished a bunch of books* from the hundred-best list I'm working on (22 months and 60ish books remain...oy).  I've also gone from my couch to a 5k and am currently trying to kick that up a notch (10k here we come) though I've been side-lined in the last week by a sick coach.**

So, it's not that I've given up on this blog... it's just that I've been busy.


* The Beautiful and Damned; LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring; On the Road; LOTR: The Two Towers; To the Lighthouse; Naked Lunch; My Antonia; Rabbit, Run; The Jungle.  Need a recommendation?  I feel good about only around half of these, so ask first.

** David had the flu, but not to worry.  He's on the mend.

Tutaonana, Kenya!

Today, I'm bidding adieu to my erstwhile home.  In about 6 hours, I'll be on a plane destined to join David in what will be our third home, third country, and third hemisphere.  Before I go though, I want to take a minute to appreciate and remember the things I'll miss now that I'm moving on.

Of course, I'll miss my Coca-Cola stand only half-a-block away (and the "coke-walks" that Team Sensible took during sports hour).  I'll miss Taco Tuesdays and whenever it was Jake or Jennie's turn to cook on Thursdays.  I'll miss my 10-minute walk to work and the sad donkey stationed on my walk home.  I'll miss living with my roommate - from whom I learned so much: about England (Fanny Pack), about French (Formidable!), about quality television programming (Game of Thrones; Sherlock), and about rational thinking (frozen heads), and who always made me tea just when I thought my head might explode and, better still, who knew just the right time to switch from tea to gin.  I'll miss relatively easy currency conversions (although I might just be a millionaire someday in TZ).  I'll miss the KK guards and the afternoon visits from George.  I'll miss passing through Nairobi on my way anywhere and the Artcaffe trip that inevitably included (yes, I'm heading there next).  I'll miss work too - I'll miss Butere District the most and a couple of really cool staffers at the HQ.  I'll probably even miss Fuppy.

Team Butere ready to serve 12,000 farmers in 2013!

Nevertheless, I'm traveling South.  Just as fast as Kenya Airways can carry me.  I'm excited for lots of reasons, but mainly that I'll get to live with my husband again.  As much as I've enjoyed this foray back into roommie life, I picked who I thought should be my final (and permanent) roommate more than 2 years ago and I'm happy to be returning to him.

So, I ask you now to tilt your globes up slightly,* drag your finger South from Bungoma to a mid-way point on Tanzania and you'll be there with me.  Karibu Iringa!**




* What do you mean you don't have a globe?!  How can you trace the analemma??
** Karibu means "welcome."  Having just set down A Clockwork Orange in the Kenya Airways Departures lounge and still finding "nadsat" confusing despite 6 years of Russian language study, I'm committed to keeping this blog more-or-less intelligible.

Hoorah!

I climbed a mountain.

Pretty much, I just wanted you to know.

For My Kenyan Readers

It's recently come to my attention that I have a Kenyan fan-base.

That's a pretty hefty exaggeration.  In fact, it just turns out that some of my colleagues googled me, leading to a discovery of Zero Degrees South, and subsequently, to several awkward face-to-face interactions designed to let me know that said discovery had been made.  For example, "Good morning, Sarah.  I know what happened last December."  It took me several rounds of, "What? What happened?" before I finally understood.

Anyway.  I've written a couple of times about how living abroad in Kenya can be surprising, funny, weird... and wonderful.  That's run-of-the-mill stuff for someone living in a cross-cultural environment and is a big part of why living overseas is appealing to me.  But, since I've spent time writing about what I find different/new/weird about Kenya, I figure, all's fair: I should share a few facts about my homeland that might surprise Mr. Kweyuh or anyone else who may have discovered this site.

1. You already know that Americans like to keep dogs as pets instead of purely for guarding the house. But, you may not have known: dogs are often allowed to sleep in the same bed as their owners.

2. In America, we like to pretend that things are more equal (and they almost certainly are) between the sexes.  Men can cook; women can drive.  Men can stay home with the kids while women go to work with no social repercussions.  But, the truth is: if left to their own devices (i.e. no mothers, girlfriends, sisters, etc.), all bachelors in both countries are still likely to cook instant noodles for every meal.

3. In the summertime, most of us take our tea ice cold with no sugar and no milk.

4. We don't have roundabouts on our roads.  As a result, we don't know how to use them and that may account for any panicking you might have seen an mzungu driver undergo while driving in Kenyan cities.

5. Most Americans don't farm.  At all.  They might have a small garden plot of tomatoes, but almost nobody grows the food they eat.  It's not even like an "I live in Nairobi but my family has 3 acres back home" things.  That's partly because, for the most part, we don't have historic homelands like Kenyans do (or, if we do, they're in Europe, Asia, Latin America, or Africa and we haven't had contact with that branch of the family in a hundred - or 2 or 3 hundred - years).

6. That brings me to another point: lots of Americans don't know what "tribe" they're a part of.  Or, they only know part of it.  I claim to be Dutch heritage but my grandparents (and great grandparents) were German, English, and French too.

7. We learn to drive when we're 15 and licensed when we're 16.  In some places kids can drive as young as 14!  So, if you're ever in the farm states in the middle of my country - watch out! :-)

8. The average age of marriage in America is 25 for women and 27 for men.  The average age of the mother at first birth is 25.6.  So, save your lectures.  I'm not as old or as weird as you think.

9. We have winter.  And it's cold.  I know you think that it's cold in the rainy season when it gets down to like 13 degrees (55 Fahrenheit), but for us, that's a beautiful day.  Where I'm from, it gets so cold that rain literally freezes when it hits the ground.  Sometimes colder.

10. We call football "soccer."  And we don't care about it.  Instead, we go crazy for American Football, which, in truth, has nothing to do with feet outside of occasional running.  It's played primarily by throwing and catching a weirdly shaped ball... with your hands.

Hope you've learned something and gotten a good laugh.  And for my American readers - well, there you have it.  We're weird/strange/different too.  Ain't it grand?

It's true.  He's been on my bed.
Photo Credit: George